Smoke
by Ally Bama
Summary: He must have sensed my presence because he turned his head and looked through me. Straight through his very son. And he was lost. So I ran. I ran away from him when he need me the most.


Smoke  
  
Hey! My first Rurouni Kenshin! Yeah! ANYWAY, I got this song after I saw an OVA Kenshin music video on AnimeinBlack.com. Very sad and very heart breaking! The original idea for this fic was from Kenshin POV but after trying over and over again, it kept on coming out in Kenji's. So, if you don't like Kenji then go away. I tried! Please review!   
  
~Bama  
  
*  
  
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Rorouni Kenshin, Samurai X or any of it's characters. I do not   
  
own Natalie Imbruglia or the song, "smoke." This is written purely for entertainment and I will not be receiving any money for this work.  
  
****  
  
A little boy ran in the yard of the wary dojo. His parents, one tending a tiny garden the other doing laundry, both looking content within there humble assemble. They look so happy, don't they? But I know better. I know if this little family with a fake shell. I am that little boy.  
  
*  
  
My Lullaby, hung out to dry   
  
What's up with that   
  
*  
  
My father was slowly dying. With each breath, his time on earth fades into the abyss of wondrous clocks. Ally my mother and I could do was sit back and watch. His heart was being torn by selfish desires. Both good and bad. But his biggest one was the one etched in his face in a form of a cross. He tried to teach the world in the ways of peace like Buddha or Confucius, but he was not of God. All of his teachings to me lead to only one known rule. Always turn your back on your family when you are in need.   
  
*  
  
It's over   
  
Where are you dad   
  
*  
  
But I am also selfish. For most of my life I tried to not see him as an important person. I to have covered my eyes to the needs of my own family. I only realized the lost of not trying to be there when he WAS there after his and my mother's death. All I can do now is remorse. I am a awful son. To both my parents. That torn up my mother. When I think of my mother I see someone so devoted to my father that she would beg him to give her his disease just so she could help shoulder his pain. She was a young, wonderful and perfect mother, who was only really herself when my father, the lord of the pathless, was home.  
  
*  
  
Mum's lookin' sad   
  
What's up with that   
  
It's dark in here   
  
*  
  
Back when I was just a little boy before I became to disturbed by his featherless ways, I saw him crying. Hard. My mother's journal was in his hands. His hair was free from it's low ponytail and was everywhere. Yards and yards of crimson hair. Just like mine. His shoulders were heaving, and gasping sounds came out of his mouth. I stood there behind the paper door dumbfound. I couldn't move, couldn't speak for fear that if I made a sound I would break him. He must have sensed my presence because he turned his head and looked through me. Straight through his very son. And he was lost. He didn't have the drive anymore. His soul wasn't there when I looked at him. So I ran. I ran away from him when he need me the most. The next day, he was gone. My mother stood in his room for hours that day. I wasn't there and I torn the last thread. The next time I would see my father, I was full of hate. T had forgotten about him and his empty eye.   
  
*  
  
Why, bleeding is breathing   
  
You're hiding underneath the smoke in the room   
  
*  
  
The next years were spent warring with my father, silently when he was home, madly when he wasn't. This happened up until I left home carrying a sword, looking for my father's strength that he never gave me. I was so wrong. I hated him even after that too. The knowledge that I could of---but didn't---support my father made new rage boil in my belly and hate ruin my blood.   
  
*  
  
Try, bleeding is believing   
  
I used to   
  
*  
  
By the time my senses had been cleared--with a little help from a certain friend--and I came home for good, it was to late. My parents were awash in cherry blossoms. Dead. My mother loved the cherry blossoms. She could sit and stare at them for days. When we were looking for a nice place to bury them, I made sure to find a cherry blossom tree. The   
  
tree was huge and majestic, yet youthful and loving. Something that I now know my father had always tried to be.   
  
*  
  
My mouth is dry   
  
Forgot how to cry   
  
*  
  
I failed as a son. My father had many flaws but so do I. I try to see myself as my father. His parents dying when he was very young, being sold into slavery then being attacked and saved by his master. Once when my father had left my mother told me that when he came home, she would call him by a different name. This made me mad, why would she honor the request of a man that makes her hurt?  
  
*  
  
What's up with that   
  
You're hurting me   
  
*  
  
When I asked his master---also my master at the time---he said he had given him a new name because he old one was to childish. First hid parents death, then slavery, now a name change. And that all happened before he was a teenager. After my parent's death I talked to my master for a long time about my father teenage years. Master said he had tried to talk sense into my father but he didn't listen. My father left to go fight a bloody war that mentally tore him limb form limb. Master said he didn't really known all that happened but he known one very important detail that took my father way to long to tell him.   
  
*  
  
I'm running fast   
  
Can't hide the past   
  
*  
  
My father had fallen in love with a girl that wasn't my mother. All master knew was that the girl died trying to save father from an attack. My father had killed her. Master said he didn't know how but it happened. He also added that after that my father was never that same again.  
  
*  
  
What's up with that   
  
You're pushing me   
  
*  
  
Dad had always said he was repenting. Was he repenting for her? Because he had killed her?   
  
*  
  
Why, bleeding is breathing   
  
You're hiding underneath the smoke in the room   
  
*  
  
The more I learn about him and all the things he did the more I want to forget it all and still continue to live in hate. He really wasn't as bad as I thought, was he?  
  
*  
  
Try, bleeding is believing   
  
I used to   
  
I used to   
  
*  
  
Every time I picture myself full of hate I just want to smack myself. I added to his problems! Why didn't I see that before?!? Stupid! Stupid! STUPID! God! How am I supposed to live knowing that I help kill my father, which in turn killed my mother?  
  
*   
  
Why, bleeding is breathing   
  
You're hiding underneath the smoke in the room   
  
*  
  
If I could go back in time and redo it all I would hesitate. I would run to the gate every time he came home, I would speak his name in love, not hate. I would help my mother more and would not disappear all the time. I'd try to get along with better. But most...I just want to go back and cry with him. Back to his lost eyes. I would show him a path for his empty soul.  
  
*  
  
Try, bleeding is believing   
  
I saw you crawling on the floor   
  
*  
  
The picture that I painted for you at the beginning of this is one of my only other memories of my father. I had been no more then 5 at the time, he hadn't gone wondering since I had been born. This overjoyed my mother but I didn't understand why. She would tuck me into bed and tell me "Pray for your father, fore he has stayed much longer then he is comfortable with."   
  
*  
  
Why, bleeding is breathing   
  
You're hiding underneath the smoke in the room   
  
Try, bleeding is believing   
  
I saw you crawling on the floor   
  
*  
  
On this particular day, one of my parents very good friend came over---the same on that   
  
knocked the sense into me later---My father and him trained together, though it was more of my father training him. My mother held me tight while they sparred. Slashing here, striking there. It was wonderful. Finally when the spar match was over---father won to my eyes---he handed his sword to the younger man and said that he had no more use for it. A thought struck me then. So why are you giving him the sword and not me? Am I not your only son? I had a hurt feeling that was like betrayal and jealousy mixed in one. I would later get the sword. After I lost a match with him. He told me to think back on my father. Think about everything he did and said. Was he really that bad?  
  
*  
  
Why, bleeding is breathing   
  
You're hiding underneath the smoke in the room   
  
Try, bleeding is believing   
  
I saw you crawling on the floor   
  
*  
  
I feel that I have somehow betrayed my own father by these feelings. That is why I pass these feeling onto my own child. Always try to live with hope in your heart and not hate. People hated my father for what he was and they didn't try to see him for who he is.   
  
A humble, lost, confused, old man.  
  
********  
  
Please R&R! 


End file.
